


That Which We Call a Rose

by arysteia



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Superman (Comics)
Genre: Identity Porn, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-07
Updated: 2012-09-07
Packaged: 2017-11-13 17:35:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/506015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/arysteia/pseuds/arysteia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The course of true love never did run smooth.  When Clark Kent met Bruce Wayne.  And Bruce Wayne met Superman.  And Superman met Batman.  And Batman met Clark Kent.  And Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne finally got their acts together...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, Gotham City, 1995

**Author's Note:**

> This story was written for the Comics Big Bang.

Winning the Wayne Foundation Scholarship to intern at the _Gotham Star_ for a semester, all expenses paid, is a dream come true – _should be_ a dream come true – for a small town boy like Clark Kent, but it’s also a nightmare. It’s hard, and it’s scary, and he misses Smallville and the farm and his folks so very much it hurts if he lets himself think about it too long. Gotham City makes _Metropolis_ look like Smallville; all the traps and pitfalls of the big city that Pa had warned him about when he went away to Met U suddenly seem like quaint and whimsical charms by comparison. 

Where Metropolis flaunts her excesses – glass and mirrored spires, hard edges and clean lines, and endless miles of bright, polished lights – Gotham is all shadows and sculpted stonework, art deco and gargoyles and gothic arches blending seamlessly into the night. It’s easy to imagine there’s something out there in the darkness, creeping. Clark feels like more of a fish out of water than ever, and he knows that running away solves nothing, his problems are still back at home waiting for him, but in that awkward, tortured moment where it seemed his entire _life_ was a lie, he’d had to get away. Away from the questions, away from the uncertainty, especially away from Lana and her pained understanding and her gentle, sad, _knowing_ smile.

His so-called colleagues at the paper have a very different attitude to Chloe and Lois; it’s not that they’re any better at their jobs, they’re not, not by a long shot, they just seem harder, somehow more brittle. They’re a constant, seething mass of gossip and innuendo, who’s slept with whom, who’s up for promotion or for a permanent position, whose star is fading. They hound him to go out with them on Friday nights after work, never taking no for an answer, but it never seems like they actually want his company, more that they’re afraid he’ll somehow one-up them in the eyes of the editor-in-chief, a grizzled old alcoholic who makes Perry White seem sweet tempered by comparison. 

He politely demurs as often as he can, but there’s no way he’s getting out of it tonight; they’ve all been invited to a charity function at Wayne Plaza and it’s understood that anyone who’s anyone, or anyone who _wants_ to be anyone, or indeed anyone who ever wants to _work_ in Gotham will attend with bells on. That’s not exactly the sort of thing that interests Clark, and the prospect of a job offer is certainly not an enticement; he has no intention of staying in Gotham any longer than he absolutely has to. Bruce Wayne himself is supposed to be attending, though, and given how generous he’s been with the whole internship programme, even if it has been in an off-hand, impersonal kind of way, Clark figures it’s only good manners for him to attend. Ma and Pa would certainly think so.

The party is even more dire than he could possibly have imagined, full of ambitious interns and Wayne Enterprises employees, and equally ambitious socialites, all of them with few exceptions as empty and superficial as each other. He can’t imagine anything worse than spending his whole career attending parties like this, and he thanks his lucky stars he’s already decided to major in international news, not metro. He can’t imagine the entourage surrounding local boy made good Lex Luthor in Metropolis is much better. Speaking of the young tycoon himself, Bruce Wayne is conspicuous by his absence. The introductions and welcome to the function were done by Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises, and the room is abuzz with rumours as to the whereabouts of the young heir, and bets as to whether he’ll turn up in time to hand over the novelty cheques himself, or whether that will fall to the long suffering Fox as well. 

The gossip Clark can’t help but overhear suggests Bruce Wayne has been absent from such functions more and more often of late, for reasons unknown. The rumour mill suggests a steady decline into dissipation, absent the stabilising influence of his parents. Clark can’t help feeling that kind of judgment is a little harsh – Bruce is only a couple of years older than he is, and he can’t imagine losing Ma and Pa now, or indeed ever, let alone as a defenceless nine year old. Whether it’s the natural sympathy for the underdog Ma and Pa instilled in him growing up on the farm in Smallville, or just the kindred spirit of orphan calling to orphan, he can’t help feeling protective whenever Bruce Wayne’s name is mentioned; and it is, often, and from most people _not_ with any generosity of spirit.

He makes his excuses and slips out, barely noticed, intent on heading back to the hotel where Wayne Enterprises is putting him up. It’s way too flash, and no doubt ridiculously overpriced, but when he’d tried to talk his way out of it, insisted he’d be just as comfortable staying somewhere cheaper, he’d been politely but firmly told there was no way that such a thing would be possible. Being safe and solitary in his own room is oddly depressing, and he heads back down to the lobby to go get himself a coke and some magazines. He could just as easily call room service, but it doesn’t seem right, making someone come up when he’s got two good legs and can perfectly easily walk down. Mission accomplished, he steps back into the elevator, and straight into another young man, too preoccupied by his cell phone conversation to pay attention to where he’s going.

“I didn’t feel like it,” the man snaps into the phone, nodding a non-apology at Clark and not looking up. “I told you already. Yeah, well that’s the thing, isn’t it? When you say that I have to, I really don’t, do I? Yeah, I thought not. No, I’ll stay in town tonight. No, no, you don’t need to come and get me.” His voice softens perceptibly. “I’m sorry I snapped at you. Yeah. Good night, Alfred.”

Clark stares at the elevator buttons and tries not to shuffle his feet awkwardly. Out of the corner of his eye he can see the young man staring at his phone, an oddly lost look on his handsome face.

“Are you okay?” he asks at last.

The man looks at him incredulously. “Am I okay?” he repeats, as though it’s the strangest question in the world.

“You look upset,” Clark forces out, feeling uncomfortably pinned by the man’s steel blue eyes. He’s starting to wish he hadn’t said anything.

“I’m fine,” the man says in a voice that implies he’s anything but. “I’m just sick of all the bullshit.”

“Were you at the party?” Clark asks, noticing for the first time the man’s impeccably cut tuxedo.

The man looks at him quizzically for a second, then shrugs. “Couldn’t face it.”

Clark smiles. Any ally is a good one, in the face of abject social failure. “Yeah, I lasted all of an hour. Bruce Wayne didn’t show up at all.”

The man looks at him again, one eyebrow slightly cocked. “Bruce Wayne?”

“Yeah,” Clark jokes, “Prince of the city, owns half of Gotham?”

The man barks a harsh laugh. “Oh. That jackass. Right.”

Clark starts guiltily, regretting his feeble attempt at humour. “I don’t think that’s quite fair,” he insists. “He gives a lot of money to good causes, he must be a good person.”

“Are you for real?” the other man snorts. “He’s a _spoiled brat_. Sleeps all day, parties all night, and throws money around because he’s never had to work a day for it in his life, and there’ll always be more where it came from.”

The elevator halts with a sudden chime. Clark realises he’d forgotten to press the button for his floor and stands aside awkwardly to let the other man out. 

The doors are halfway closed when the man turns back suddenly and shoves his hand in between them, making them bounce open again with an outraged _ping_. “You want to come in, have a drink?” he asks. 

“Me?” Clark blurts, surprised. There’d been nothing welcoming in the man’s tone, and there isn’t really anything in his posture either. But it beats another long night alone with his thoughts.

He follows the other man to his room. It’s a suite, and makes Clark’s look small by comparison.

“I’m Clark, by the way, Clark Kent,” he says, falling back on good manners. 

“B,” the other man grunts, barely looking at him as he undoes his cufflinks and flings them carelessly onto a sideboard.

“Bee?” Clark asks, unsure he heard right. _Bea?_ The other man only shrugs.

They order room service after all, Clark’s bag from the newsagent abandoned, and when he offers to pay half, despite the huge dent it’ll put in his per diem, Bee just laughs and waves him off.

Despite the awkward start, the night actually progresses quickly and surprisingly enjoyably, and they shift from the dining area to the couch with barely a pause. Bee’s a witty and urbane conversationalist, and can match Clark on just about any topic. He drinks more than he really should – that becomes apparent immediately; he finishes the wine by himself when Clark declines, and moves on to whiskey after – but it’s hardly Clark’s place to say so, and it’s not like he’s going to be driving anywhere. 

They talk about anything and everything, politics and current affairs giving way to more personal topics, and Clark finds himself confiding the whole miserable tale of his final break up with Lana, and the mine field that is negotiating his feelings for Lois and Chloe, or more accurately, their feelings for him. There’s something liberating about just pouring it all out to someone who doesn’t know any of them, and cares even less, and therefore takes Clark’s part entirely, nodding mournfully where appropriate, and making surprisingly bitchy comments when required. Bee’s quite drunk by the end of it, cut crystal tumbler hanging loose in his hand, and Clark feels positively giddy himself from the pure abandoned freedom of it all. Whatever he says, Bee just nods and smiles wryly, and manages to top it with an embarrassing escapade of his own.

“I’d better go,” Clark says at last, loth though he is to say goodnight.

“Stay,” Bee says quickly.

“What?” Clark asks, momentarily unsure just what’s on the table.

Bee answers that question pretty unequivocally when he leans in and presses his mouth hard against Clark’s.

Clark pulls away, shocked.

“Um... I...” he stammers. “I don’t...” It’s not that he’s never _imagined_ such a thing, it’s just... Well, okay, he’s imagined _plenty_ , but it never occurred to him that that sort of fevered daydream might actually become a reality.

Bee laughs, a sad, brittle sound without much humour in it, and undoes his tie one handed, pushing himself up off the couch with the other.

“Stay or go,” he says, “but don’t pretend you _don’t_. You’ve been looking at me like a rare steak all night, and there’s a pretty obvious common denominator to all your tales of romantic woe.”

Clark flushes scarlet. “I’ve never...” He breaks off again.

“Ah,” Bee concurs, “well, that’s completely different. I’ve been around the block a time or two, just follow my lead and I’ll show you the ropes.”

It’s surprisingly, shamefully easy to take his extended hand and follow him into the bedroom. Bee helps Clark out of his clothes, shucking his own with the elegance of a snake shedding its skin. He’s all long lines and lean muscle, lightly tanned and much slighter than Clark despite their being of a height. Clark trails a hand across his shoulder and down his biceps, reminding himself that Bee is still so fragile compared to him, closer in strength to Lana despite his far greater bulk.

They roll onto the bed, kissing again, more enthusiastically this time. Bee kisses like it’s a battle, biting at Clark’s lips and sucking hard on his tongue, resisting any attempt to gentle or slow down. He breaks away suddenly to shimmy down Clark’s body, licking a warm wet line down his torso and onto one thigh. Clark shudders as he breathes hot and humid over his groin, then moans aloud as he swallows him whole. He slides up and down with the ease of obvious long practice, and Clark spares a thought to be grateful he’s already got the stammered embarrassing confessions out of the way, because there’s no way he’s ever going to live up to this.

Bee pulls off suddenly, leaning over Clark to swipe a blue glass jar of something very expensive looking off the bedside table.

“Um, hey...” Clark stammers, nervous again. “I don’t know if I...”

“Relax,” Bee interrupts. He opens the jar one-handed, scooping a liberal amount of a thick white cream onto his fingers and applying it to Clark’s clearly still interested cock. Clark shudders, the sudden cool a shock to his overheated skin. Bee strokes him a couple more times, then rises to his knees and moves to straddle Clark’s lap.

“Hey, wait,” he blurts as Bee positions himself and starts to sink down; even his furtive exploratory library searches are enough for him to know they’re skipping over a vital step or two. Bee just grits his teeth and forces himself down, moist flesh clamping around the head of Clark’s dick as it penetrates him.

It’s almost uncomfortable for a second, a thick drag despite the lubrication, then Bee’s flush against his hips, and Clark’s all the way inside, and it’s hot and tight and glorious, and he couldn’t keep from moving if he wanted to, all good intentions be damned. It flicks through his mind that they should be using a condom, the literature was very clear about that too, not that there’s any risk between them, but _Bee_ doesn’t know that, and especially if he does this kind of thing a lot, he’s so smart and good looking and confident, and, and, it’d be _unforgivable_ to give someone a lecture on safe sex when you’re _inside_ them, and, and-

Bee picks up the pace, muscles in his long thighs clenching, rising to his knees then sliding back down. His open hands press hard against Clark’s shoulders as he drives himself back, and as he settles into the cradle of Clark’s pelvis he shifts his hips and tightens his internal muscles in a way that makes Clark’s head swim. His whole body shakes with the effort, and Clark comes back to himself enough to take a gentle hold of his hips and support him, do some of the heavy lifting, and as their eyes meet Bee’s face loses its pinched look.

“Yeah, that’s it, that’s good,” he moans, and Clark takes it as encouragement, pushing up with little shifts of his own hips, and the way Bee groans and throws his head back says that that’s a good thing, so he does it some more. He only lasts a couple more minutes, and he’d be embarrassed, but Bee just grins and starts slowly stroking himself, Clark still buried half hard inside him. He comes with a quiet grunt and collapses onto Clark’s chest.

They sleep for a while, and when Clark wakes to find Bee leaning up on an elbow, looking down at him with a puzzled look on his face, he surprises himself with his own forwardness, shoving Bee down into the rumpled bedclothes and rolling on top of him. Bee laughs and spreads his legs obligingly, and Clark fits between them like it’s the most natural thing in the world. He slides back inside Bee with no difficulty at all, the way slippery with cream and sweat and semen, and loosened from their earlier activities. 

He’s more confident this time, knowing just how hard he can push, how much Bee can take, and he gives it everything he’s got, shoving his way inside until his balls are snug against Bee’s ass, holding him in place with an arm around his waist and a hand on his shoulder, thrusting hard into his willing body. Bee arches his back and pushes into the thrusts, fingers clutching at Clark’s sides, nails scraping against his impenetrable skin. Clark lasts a lot longer this time, and manages to make sure Bee comes first, something even a Smallville near-virgin knows is important. The feeling is incredible, Bee’s body clenching tightly around him, pulling his own orgasm out of him, and he comes with a loud cry, clutching Bee to him and kissing him hard.

When he wakes for a second time, Bee’s on the other side of the room, glaring at his reflection in the floor to ceiling mirror. He’s fully dressed, but while his suit’s as impeccable as ever, his hair is wild, and there’s what can only be a bite mark on the side of his jaw. His eyes look a little glassy too, and as he steps forward to straighten his tie there’s an obvious stiffness in his posture, and a barely suppressed wince. He suddenly notices Clark looking at him, and flinches.

“You’re leaving?” Clark asks, trying not to sound bewildered.

“Yeah,” Bee shifts awkwardly. “Alfred was right. I’ve got to show my face at this thing.”

“Oh, okay,” Clark says, casting his eye around the room wildly, looking for his underwear, and trying not to wonder jealously who the heck this _Alfred_ person is. “Hang on just a second and I’ll come with you.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Bee sighs. “There’ll be reporters everywhere.”

“Um...” Clark suppresses a guilty flinch. Somehow, in all their conversation, the whole internship thing didn’t come up. “Okay. I’ve got the day off tomorrow, we could meet for lunch?”

“I’m busy,” Bee answers without meeting his eyes, focused on doing up his cufflinks, in a tone that doesn’t sound remotely convincing. “Sorry. The suite’s paid for; stay as long as you want.”

He walks out of the room and doesn’t look back, door closing quietly behind him. It’s surprisingly painful, despite the fact Clark didn’t really have the right to expect more. He sighs and rolls back over, trying to get comfortable in the massive bed, but sleep won’t be coming any time soon. He really should go back to his own room, but a desperate, naive hope stops him. He sits up instead, and reaches for the remote. The television flicks on to KCGN, and as the late news starts the first story is coverage of the party, and the late arrival of an obviously inebriated and visibly debauched Bruce Wayne. As he staggers up to the podium, and smiles vapidly at the delightedly chattering crowd, Clark’s horrified to recognise the man who’d just left. He phones the offices at Wayne Enterprises the next day, but Bruce Wayne is in a meeting and unavailable to take his call.

Clark finishes out the internship with flying colours, and gets offered a starting position in the _Star_ ’s investigative division after graduation. It’s a plum opportunity, one anyone his age would kill for, and it doesn’t take enhanced vision to see the anger and jealousy on his erstwhile colleagues’ faces. The looks turn to confusion, and then open contempt, when he turns it down and returns to Metropolis without so much as a farewell drink. Gotham is an amazing city, and he could be anything – _anyone_ – there. It’s just not anyone he _wants_ to be.


	2. Bruce Wayne and Superman, Metropolis, 1998

Superman’s been operating openly in Metropolis for a little over six months when Gotham businessman Bruce Wayne makes the mistake of coming to town personally to make a play for a small bio-technology company that Lex Luthor also has his eye on. There’s no evidence to implicate Luthor of course, but Superman has never really been an evidence sort of guy. One day Lois Lane and her colleagues at the _Daily Planet_ will blow the pool of corruption that is Metropolis business circles – Luthorcorp, Edge Industries, Intergang – wide open, but until that day Superman settles for keeping the worst from happening when and where he can. 

He’s well aware he’s little more than an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff – Perry White himself wrote so, in those exact words, in a scathing editorial – but he manages to catch a few people before they hit bottom and need that ambulance, and he has to call that a win. “ _You can’t save everybody_ ” is heart-breaking, and a truism, and the best advice his folks ever gave him, all at the same time.

Bruce Wayne is stunningly handsome in person, even more so than he was as a young man. He’s begun to fill out, shoulders broadening, just enough muscle added to make him look fit without being heavy, patrician profile as flawless as ever, charcoal lashes fanning long and thick on his high cheekbones. The thin stream of blood pouring out of his nose and down his chin, scratches on his forehead, and scorch marks on his starched collar do nothing to detract from the overall picture. Superman’s just beginning to feel guilty for ogling him while he’s unconscious when he jolts awake, flinching violently in Superman’s arms.

“Ssh, ssh,” Superman soothes, using the calming voice that’s rapidly becoming second nature as he gets better at dealing with the horrified victims of his more spectacular rescues. The first time he caught a child who’d fallen out of an eighteenth storey window, he’d had to catch her twice. She shook so hard when she came to, she slid right out of his arms. 

“You’re all right,” he croons, “I’ve got you.”

“You’ve got me?” Wayne murmurs groggily, “Who...?” He struggles against Superman’s chest, craning his neck to see over his shoulder. “Whoa!” he chokes, getting a face and mouthful of ice cold air. “Are we-?”

“Flying, yes,” Superman confirms. “Stay calm, I’ll have you back at your hotel in a moment.”

“Okay,” Wayne mumbles, burying his face in Superman’s chest and holding on tightly.

They land on the roof of the Metropolis Meridien moments later, and Wayne insists on being lowered to his feet, rather than being ‘carried across the threshold like a damn bride’. He’s still shaky on his feet though, and Superman insists in turn on accompanying him down the short flight of stairs to the penthouse suite. It’s exactly what you would expect from a man like Bruce Wayne, opulent, richly decorated, and completely sterile.

“Don’t just stand there, come on in,” Wayne says as he staggers in, dragging one hand carefully along the wall for support.

Superman looks around nervously, as though checking the corridor for witnesses to an assignation, then shakes himself at the absurdity of the thought and follows him in, shutting the door behind him.

Wayne has walked straight through the lounge and into the bedroom, collapsing bonelessly onto the bed. “Pour me a drink, will you,” he asks, “and tell me what the hell just happened.”

Superman pours him a large scotch from the crystal decanter on the sideboard, and watches the bob of his throat as he throws it back in one long swallow.

“Another,” he demands, waving the glass imperiously.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Superman says in his best parental tone. It’s never easy with someone who’s older, very likely more confident, and in his own way more powerful, than him, but he’s getting there, and the moral authority of the suit helps. “You could be in shock, or-”

“I’m not in shock,” Wayne snaps, sitting up, “and you’ve no doubt already scanned me and ascertained I don’t have a concussion or any internal injuries.”

“Uh... yes.” He’d learned that one the hard way too, his first multi-car pile-up.

“Then one more won’t hurt.”

Superman sighs and pours him another. At least Wayne seems satisfied to sip at this one slowly, while he peers into a gilt edged mirror and dabs at the clotting cuts on his face.

“So?” he demands.

“So? Oh, um...” Superman looks around nervously, then pulls himself together; he refuses to stand in front of this maddening man like this, like a kid called in to the principal’s office. He pulls an overstuffed armchair up to the foot of the bed, and squeezes into it as gracefully as possible. He’s under no illusion he still looks ridiculous, cape pouring over the scarlet brocade and no doubt clashing horribly, but so be it.

“There was an attempt on your life,” he says authoritatively. “A car bomb. From what I could tell it was supposed to go off when you got in, maybe turned the ignition, but something made it go off early, when you pressed the button to open the locks. The blast wave threw you clear of the explosion and I was able to-”

“Was anyone else hurt?” Wayne demands.

“No, the garage was empty. I’m curious,” Superman asks, “Do you always drive yourself around? I expected you to be more the limo and chauffeur type.”

“I’m not any kind of type,” Wayne snaps. “But no, I do usually have a driver when I’m in town on business. The Murcielago was a present from Lex...”

“A present?” Superman boggles at the reminder of how different Bruce Wayne’s world truly is, then reminds himself to focus on what’s really important here. “Lex? Lex Luthor?”

“We were at school together,” Wayne sighs. “Well, for a while, anyway, before he was expelled. Happy birthday to me, huh? God, I knew he was mad about Viologic, but this...”

“I’m sorry,” Superman says, and he is. He knows first-hand how charming Luthor can be, and how much it can hurt to find out it’s all an act, even if you half suspected all along.

Wayne shrugs, “Nature of the business, I suppose,” but the bleak look in his eyes belies the flippant tone.

“I should be going,” Superman starts. “But I can go with you to the police station if you’d like?”

“What’s the point?” Wayne sighs. “It’ll never stick, and I’d rather not have to deal with the attention.”

“It’s already on the news,” Superman says sternly, knowing even as he does how pompous he sounds. “It’s your duty as a responsible citizen to report a crime this serious.”

“Fuck!” Wayne blurts, ignoring him. “It’s already on the news? Hang on a second, I need to make a call. _God_. I should have done it before.”

He breaks off and fishes the remains of a tiny, and no doubt very expensive, phone from his jacket pocket. “Huh.” He drops the debris, and reaches for the phone on the bedside table. “Alfred? Yeah, it’s me. No, I know. I’m sorry.”

Superman mightily refrains from trying to figure out who the mysterious Alfred on the other end of the line is, and why he’s still around after all this time.

“No, I’m fine. I’m fine, really. Superman saved me.” Bruce Wayne laughs, and it sounds genuine for a moment, and almost sweet. His eyes crinkle at the edges, and he looks younger, more hopeful, less jaded. “Yes, he’s every bit as nice in person as the papers say.” He winks at Superman. “Yes, his manners are delightful. Uhuh, yes, yes, I will. Goodnight, Alfred.”

He hangs up and turns back to Superman. His eyes have gone cold again, and the smile on his face looks downright predatory now.

“Well. I’m glad you’re all right, Mr Wayne,” Superman says, standing up. “Please call the police as soon as you’ve had some rest.”

“Is there another emergency?” Wayne asks.

“Huh?”

“An emergency somewhere else. Somewhere you have to be. Some other hapless billionaire being blown half to pieces.”

Superman cocks an ear. He doesn’t really have to, but he’s gotten into the habit; it makes it more obvious to bystanders he’s actually reacting to something, and not just abandoning them in the middle of a conversation. Now that he thinks about it there’s nothing; no screams, no cries for help, just the normal everyday sounds of Metropolis going about its business.

“No,” he says carefully, half suspiciously.

“Good,” Wayne answers, kneeing up off the bed, and crossing the short distance to the chair. He pushes Superman back down into it with surprising strength, and clambers up to straddle his lap.

“What?” Superman stares at him in shocked amazement. “What are you doing?”

Wayne grins sharkishly. “Thanking you for saving my life.”

“No thanks are necessary, Mr Wayne,” Superman says stiffly, fighting an insidiously creeping paralysis and trying to push the wriggling Wayne off his lap.

“Oh, I disagree,” Wayne insists, squirming delightfully closer. “I was raised always to thank people properly.”

“Really, Mr Wayne, I...”

“Really, Superman.” Wayne smirks. “Call me Bruce. And I should think you’d be used to it by now, the adulation of the adoring masses.”

That gives Superman the strength to shove him off onto the floor, and stand up. Wayne stares up at him from his sprawl in stunned surprise.

“I have _never_ taken advantage of anyone’s gratitude,” Superman says angrily, and this time there’s no need to fall back on an imagined persona, the indignation is entirely real. “Never. And I never will. Goodbye, Mr Wayne.”

“Wait!” Wayne leaps to his feet and grabs Superman’s arm. He could dislodge him easily, but there are already bruises forming at a molecular level on his chest, in the exact shape of Superman’s hand, and he doesn’t want to add to them. 

“I’m sorry,” Wayne says quietly. “I didn’t mean to insult or offend you. Of course you don’t take advantage of people. That’s not what I meant.”

“Then what did you mean?” Superman asks, arms folded defensively across his chest.

“I don’t know,” Wayne says miserably. “Sometimes I just say things to hear myself talk. I can go days without talking to anyone, you know?”

“I find that hard to believe,” Superman says sternly, but something in Wayne’s wounded demeanour makes him relax the severity just a little bit.

“You’d be surprised,” Wayne insists, and for such a young man, with so much to offer and so much he’s been given, he sounds unspeakably bitter and jaded. “Everyone who’s anyone wants to be seen with Brucie Wayne, but no one actually wants to _talk_ to him. And they certainly don’t want to _listen_ to anything he has to say. Fucking, on the other hand-”

“You’re better than that,” Superman interrupts. “Much better.”

“I’m really not,” Wayne insists. “I sleep half the day, and party all night. I’ve never worked a day in my life, but I sign a few cheques for charity so that makes it all right. My parents would be ashamed of me.”

Superman doesn’t know what to say to that. His own birth parents are dead, but he’d never known them, after all, and it’s fair to say he assumes he’s more than lived up to the weight of any expectations they might have had for him. His adoptive parents only ever wanted him to be happy, and they too are proud of him, and quick to show it.

“Then _do_ something with your life, Bruce,” he says at last. “Something meaningful. Something that would make your parents proud, but more than that, something that’ll make _you_ proud.”

“Could I make _you_ proud?” Bruce asks, his voice barely a whisper.

“It’s not about me,” Superman insists. “But yes, I’m sure you could.”

There’s something so lost, so broken, in Bruce’s face that when he leans in towards him again Superman doesn’t pull away. Bruce’s lips are soft, his kiss gentle, and Superman finds himself opening to him, kissing back. They sink down onto the bed, and for a long while are content to just lie there in each other’s arms, kissing languidly, and stroking each other’s backs and arms and sides. For the longest time Superman has an ear out for trouble, for any sign that someone, somewhere, is in danger, but the call never comes, and for once Metropolis and the world beyond is quiet. Just this once, he allows himself to relax, and as Bruce fumbles with the hidden catches to the suit he finds himself helping.

They make love quietly and gently, and while it’s immediately obvious Bruce is the more experienced, he allows Superman to take the lead, content to lie still and let him map every inch of him, first with his fingers and then with his tongue. He’s blinking back tears when Superman finally slides oh so slowly inside him, but it’s not from pain. Not any physical pain anyway. He arches his back and leans into the strokes, and his hands clench tightly on Superman’s shoulders, his fingers digging sharply into invulnerable muscle with a force that almost bruises all the same. 

They lie there in the afterglow, Superman’s arm pillowing Bruce’s head, the other wrapped tightly around his waist, holding him close. Bruce whispers against his shoulder until he’s hoarse, confiding for what’s clearly the first time what it was like to sit in a cold, damp alley, waiting for a policeman, or an ambulance, or _anyone_ who could help; to count his mother’s last breaths, and to hear his father tell him not to be afraid. There’s nothing to say to that, so Superman says nothing, just pulls the blankets tighter around him, and holds him more closely.

Superman finally has to deal with a six car pile-up at four in the morning, and leaves with a regretful kiss goodbye. Bruce Wayne doesn’t call the police, doesn’t return to Gotham for his twenty-fifth birthday party, and is in fact not seen again, anywhere, for almost four years. Alfred Pennyworth, who is, it turns out, his faithful servant and erstwhile guardian, reports him missing but declines any and all of Superman’s offers to help find him. When the vanished scion finally returns to Gotham, staring out icily beautiful from the covers of a thousand newspapers and magazines, cheerfully unconcerned with the trouble he’s caused and offering neither apology nor explanation, he looks more arrogant, and behaves more outrageously and shamefully in public, than he ever has. His eyes are clear and alive though, and there’s definitely something about him that’s changed.


	3. Superman and Batman, Cygnus IV, 2005

Superman and Batman will never be friends. That much is obvious from the very first day they meet. It’s largely Superman’s fault; he’s a big enough man to admit that in the years that follow. He really could have handled that all important first meeting better, but then, he hadn’t expected to be accosted in the Gotham night by a man dressed as a giant bat. He overcompensates for the shock with a lecture about vigilantism even he realises is sanctimonious and hypocritical, and Batman takes it about as badly as might be expected. When he goes so far as to order Superman out of his city, the scene is set for every interaction for years to come.

For an alien, Superman is every inch a corn-fed, middle-American jackass, and it’s obvious from the moment Batman meets him. For a man who’s done so much to inspire others, has in fact done so much to inspire Batman himself, he’s judgmental, self-righteous, and totally out of line. He has no understanding of how a city like Gotham works, and Batman is quick to tell him so. In hindsight, it’s possible he could have been more diplomatic – Metropolis might be a children’s playground by comparison to Gotham, but Superman more than pulls his weight when it comes to the heavy hitters and intergalactic threats – but what’s done is done.

They work together more and more often once they form the fledgling team that will become the Justice League. They fight like a seamless unit, and they both know they make each other better heroes. The one-two punch of tactics and firepower they provide is well-nigh unstoppable, and the envy of all their comrades. The way it all falls apart when they get back to the Watchtower, however, is a mystery to all, including themselves. Their inability to be in the same room without bickering is the stuff of legend, and the fact that water-cooler gossip attributes it to a failed romance is too laughable to be annoying. Superman would never contemplate a relationship with someone who won’t show him his face, and Batman... Batman doesn’t dwell on the past, or things he can’t change.

Superman’s admiration for Batman’s bravery and intelligence is eclipsed only by his frustration at his intransigence and wilful disregard for his own safety. It’s only natural he’d attempt to downplay his relative fragility, surrounded as he is by the invulnerable and the gravity defying, but he should just accept that there are some things he can’t _do_. For heaven’s sake, there are a million things he _can_ do that the others can’t – formulating a plan and allowing for every permutation and eventuality is one thing that springs immediately to mind – so he should acknowledge his physical limitations and let the others take the brunt of the punishment.

The only thing bigger than Superman’s heart is his insane recklessness. He’s so confident in his yellow sun granted strength and invulnerability that he’s never once taken the time to consider what he’d do without either. It’s a shortcoming Batman’s tried hard and often to remedy, but Superman defies him with an optimism bordering on lunacy. He’s the first into every battle, never once waiting for Batman to complete the recon or formulate a plan more complicated than _See giant robot_ – _Punch giant robot_ – _Reveal giant robot’s kryptonite heart_ – _Writhe in pain until Batman can neutralise and/or contain said specimen_. Inevitably he then has the gall to complain that he was only doing what was necessary. “ _Fight smarter, not harder_ ” is clearly a mantra missing from his playbook.

“God damn it!” Batman shouts as the Javelin flight sequence fails yet again to initiate. They’re stranded on this godforsaken rock until someone with a flight ring notices they haven’t made the rendezvous, and deigns to come looking for them. He’s got six inches of rebar piercing his shoulder, and it’s making it hard to exercise the fine motor control needed to pluck shrapnel out of wounds. Especially when said shrapnel is fragmented kryptonite from an explosion Superman would have been safely out of range of if he’d actually been standing where Batman had stationed him, and said wounds are gaping open in Superman’s beautiful face and neck, veins pulsing a poisoned, treacherous green-black around them.

He’s starting to lose feeling in his hand, and as the blood drips down his arm to fall in steady drops from the fingers of his gauntlet, he can feel his body temperature dropping and his head growing light as hypovolemic shock sets in. More to the point, Superman’s breath is beginning to rattle in his chest, and his usually rock steady heartbeat is erratic. With a sigh Batman picks up the pair of needle-nosed pliers he’d been using on the innards of the Javelin’s control panel, and takes a firm hold of the inch of rusted metal sticking out of the front of his body armour. It takes three good twists, each more excruciating than the last, and he almost throws up as it finally gives, pulling free with a wet slurp and falling to the ground, along with the pliers, from suddenly nerveless fingers.

He tries to breathe through it; long, deep breaths in followed by short, shallow breaths out, as he learned years ago, his concentration on the soul and not the body, but it’s hard, too hard, and he knows with sickening certainty he’s going to bleed out before he can stitch himself up. His last semi-conscious memory is of reaching for Superman’s hand.

Superman’s been drifting in and out of consciousness for what seems like hours when he suddenly registers a change through the haze of pain and dizziness. Batman’s heartbeat, a rock steady metronome beat he’s always used to centre himself, is slowing. He forces himself back to wakefulness, struggles to open his eyes. Batman is slumped over him, one black gauntleted hand clenched in the neck of his suit, the other curled loosely around his own bare hand, sticky with blood. 

He follows the slowing thread of Batman’s pulse back past his heart, up to his shoulder and the gruesome wound there. Yes, he remembers now, Batman working feverishly to dismantle the last of the mines, insisting that Superman stand back as the sheer amount of kryptonite involved was affecting him even from a distance, the tell-tale click, audible only to him, as a second switch tripped, giving him only seconds to grab Batman and fly him out of the blast radius. With the last of his fading strength he focuses tightly on the wound. The effort it takes to force his vision to the right position on the spectrum, and concentrate hard enough to cauterise the wound, is enough to knock him out again.

When he comes to once more, the kryptonite splinters in his face and neck have been removed, and safely contained. Batman is glaring down at him. 

“What the hell were you thinking?” he demands, his voice a growl usually reserved for the worst of Gotham scum. 

“Me?” Superman asks defensively. “What were _you_ thinking?”

It’s a debate they’ve had a thousand times before, and they could run through it in their sleep.

“Why won’t you ever do as I _say_?”

“Why don’t you ever say what you _mean_?”

“I don’t know-” 

“That you’re glad I’m _okay_!”

“You’d _be_ okay if you did what I said!”

“ _You_ wouldn’t be!”

This time though, for some reason, they deviate from the script. It’s hard to tell who moves first, but the next thing either of them knows they’re kissing, no less angrily than they were fighting, teeth clacking violently, lips bruising and breaking open. Superman’s still healing from the kryptonite exposure and feels every bit of Batman’s aggression. He seizes control of the kiss back, grasping Batman’s shoulders and throwing him up against the wall. Batman grunts as his injured shoulder hits the bulkhead, but doesn’t pause. His teeth scrape down Superman’s neck and shoulder, pulling aside the neck of the suit to gnaw at his collarbones.

They collapse to the floor, each fighting for dominance, never once letting go as they roll over and over in each other’s arms. Batman’s fingers clench, digging into Superman’s biceps, and Superman relishes the feeling, and the knowledge that for once he’ll be marked, however briefly. Superman’s fingers curl in the edges of the cowl, wishing he could just tear it off once and for all and finally see this infuriating man who has nothing but scorn for him but would die to save him, but a growl from Batman makes it very clear just where his boundaries lie.

They grind against each other, and finally Batman finds the hidden catches in Superman’s suit, slipping a hand inside. The gauntlet he’s still wearing is rough on Superman’s sensitised flesh, almost too rough, and his uninjured hand, his left, is clumsy, but it’s still the best thing Superman’s ever felt. Batman strokes him a couple of times, then pulls the leggings of his suit down roughly, leaning in in one smooth movement to swallow Superman down. He doesn’t stop until his mouth is flush with Superman’s groin, and Superman cries out as he swallows, the impossible tightness of Batman’s throat flexing and massaging the entire length of his cock.

It’s an awkward angle, but Superman forces himself up on one elbow, and looks down the length of his body. It’s a sight he doubts anyone else has ever seen, the Batman sprawled across his lower body, his cape spread over them both like a blanket, his cowled head bobbing up and down in Superman’s lap. It should look ridiculous, comical, but it doesn’t, and Superman’s filled with a sense of genuine affection as well as mounting arousal. The visible part of Batman’s face is flushed and slick with sweat, and his cheeks form deep hollows as he sucks hard. Superman rubs a thumb across his upper lip, allowing it to just slip under the curve of the mask, then slides his hand round to cup Batman’s neck. 

The gentleness is at odds with the roughness of everything else, but there’s something so endearing and fragile about the bones of Batman’s skull shifting under his grasp it makes him pause. He thinks for a fraction of a second of the only other man he’s ever done this with, but shakes the memory off as ill-timed and inappropriate. Batman pulls off briefly to lick around the head of his cock, and back down to his balls, sucking each one in turn into his mouth. Superman moans and comes, and Batman greedily drinks him down, before patting him once, an oddly comradely gesture, then tucking his limp, spent organ back into his suit.

They lie there for a few moments, Batman’s head pillowed on Superman’s thigh, in companionable silence, then Superman shoves him off and rolls him onto his back. Batman remains silent, teeth clenching on his lower lip as Superman takes him into his mouth. His inexperience is still obvious; it’s clear he hasn’t made a habit of this sort of thing in the last few years, and it makes it even better, knowing that the Man of Steel would never do this for anyone else, that all his strength and raw power is caged just for him. 

What Superman lacks in experience he more than makes up for in enthusiasm, slurping wetly, nuzzling Batman’s balls, licking up and down the length of him, and pulling off to hold just the sensitive head in his mouth. He can’t take more than half Batman’s length in his mouth at a time, but he uses his hand on what he can’t reach, stroking gently. He pulls off at the finish, leaning up to capture Batman’s mouth in a kiss, swallowing his groan as he comes, hot and wet in Superman’s hand. 

His whole body’s shaking, and his eyes are tightly closed; he can’t bear to look. Superman just pulls him close, heedless of the mess smearing sticky on the front of his suit, and holds him till he stops shuddering. For that brief moment he’s the fledgling hero again, kind and comforting and so very, very sweet, and it’s horrible how much Batman _misses_ someone he never even met. The console starts beeping soon after, and they both put themselves to rights as best they can – Batman’s well-stocked utility belt never more useful – before the others arrive.

Superman and Batman do eventually become friends. Best friends even. It’s entirely possible that they’re the last to know, a fact which causes Superman great amusement, and Batman untold irritation. They grow to be comrades in arms, shield brothers, even occasional lovers, from time to time, when the fear is great enough, the battle close enough, the emotions high enough. It’s just a shame that the need for secrecy means they’ll never be anything more.


	4. Batman and Clark Kent, Gotham City, 2008

Clark Kent of the _Daily Planet_ isn’t _quite_ as out of place in Gotham as the bewildered tourists who stumble daily into trouble in the abandoned stretches of Crime Alley and its environs, but as Batman watches from the roof of the Boyard Building he looks every bit as much a lamb to the slaughter. Cheap polyester suit rumpled, glasses half askew, he steps off the sidewalk and into the park without a care in the world, and it’s no surprise at all when a junkie strung out on crystal meth steps out of the shadows with a gun cocked in his shaking hand. 

“Gimme your wallet!” he snarls.

“Excuse me?” Kent asks, one finger sliding his glasses back up his nose, no more concerned than if the man were asking him for directions.

“I said give me your wallet,” the junkie shrieks. “And your watch too.”

“Now, son,” Kent says sternly, and it’s ridiculous coming from someone who’s barely older than the young man himself. He hardly looks a day older than- _Focus_. “I don’t think you want-”

He reaches for the gun, and Batman can see the whole sordid scenario play out as it has a hundred times before. He fires off a decel line and jumps, momentum carrying him across the street and into the park, cape billowing behind him like the wings of an avenging angel. Another second and he wouldn’t have made it; as it is the gun fires, deafeningly loud in the still night, and the bullet grazes his shoulder. The suit stops the worst of the impact, though it’ll still bruise most likely. A quick trajectory analysis confirms it would have hit Kent in the head though, so he chalks it up as a win.

The junkie’s just a kid, when viewed up close, and he bursts into hysterical sobbing before Batman even has the chance to say anything, meekly holding out his shaking hands to be zip-stripped. He belongs in rehab, not in jail, and Batman makes a note to contact a clinic rather than the police when he gets back to the car. Kent’s still standing there, open mouthed and wondering.

“You’re welcome,” Batman growls, preparing another line.

“What? Oh, thank you.”

Kent looks far less shaken than he should; more like quietly impressed and intrigued. God, bad enough he’s in town seeking to interview that ninny Bruce Wayne, don’t let him want to complete the set with _Batman_ too.

“You should be more careful,” Batman snarls, in the voice he perfected on Superman, the one that implies Gotham’s borders should be permanently closed to anyone who wasn’t born there. “Get back to your shining Metropolis, you’ve no business here in Gotham.”

“ _You’re_ my business. I want this story,” Kent insists, suddenly all focused attention. “And it’s in your interest to give it to me.”

“You came out here, set this up, on purpose?” Batman demands, incredulous and disappointed. Some people really are too stupid to live. Pretty, yes, but dumb. “You could have been killed.”

Kent just shrugs, and smiles enigmatically.

Batman fires the line. He’s about to release it as Kent grabs his arm. His grip is surprisingly strong, and sure. The timing’s off, and there’s no way to dislodge him safely, so Batman wraps an arm around his waist as he lets go of the trigger. They sail through the air, pressed together hip to hip, and land, hitting the roof hard. Batman stumbles, just a fraction of a second off his stride, and it’s Kent who catches him hard around the waist, rights them both. They stand there for a long moment, pressed together chest to groin, and just as Batman gathers himself to shove Kent off, say his curt goodbyes and leave, Kent leans in the remaining distance and kisses him full on the mouth. It feels weird, kissing a civilian with the cowl on, and it’s surprise that makes him stand there and allow it, more kissed against than kissing, for several seconds.

Just what it is that makes him open his mouth and kiss _back_ is more of a mystery. Kent’s the same height as he is now, would maybe be an inch or so taller if he wasn’t wearing the reinforced boots, and he’s broader in the shoulders than Batman himself. The polyester blend of his suit rasps horribly under his gloved hands, and he finds himself slipping them under the lapels, tearing the wretched thing off. Kent lets it fall, heedless, and kisses harder, sucking on his tongue, biting at his lips, licking across his face and at the edges of the cowl. It’s reckless, unprofessional, dangerous, _wildly inappropriate_ ; there’s something about it that feels like coming home.

They rut against each other, hands wandering, hips thrusting, mouths locked together. Kent tears himself away to gasp out, “Come back to my hotel with me.”

“ _What?_ ” It breaks the spell, and Batman stares at him, incredulous. “Are you crazy?”

“Then let me come back with you.”

Kent looks almost despairing as Batman scowls and prepares to tell him just what a ridiculous impossibility that suggestion is.

“You can blindfold me,” Kent adds, “I won’t look, I promise.”

Batman opens his mouth to say something cutting, crush the naive optimist’s crazy dreams once and for all, but what comes out instead is a strangled, “ _Yes_.”

Kent’s true to his word, doesn’t struggle or flinch as Batman wraps a length of blackout cloth from his utility belt around his eyes and ties it tightly. He follows meekly, not saying a word as Batman drags him to the car, and once he’s safely buckled into the passenger seat he folds his hands decorously in his lap and doesn’t say a word for the entirety of the journey home. Batman’s never driven the distance faster. He pulls into the cave with a roar, and swings the car into a crooked park, flinging the door open and hauling Kent bodily out, tossing him up against the hood, hard.

He’s practically trembling as Batman leans in, plasters himself against him, grinding him into the warm metal of the hood. They kiss some more, and then Batman’s tearing at the blindfold.

“You don’t have to,” Kent gasps, “I can leave it on.”

“I want to see your face,” Batman confesses, slipping it off and letting it fall to the ground at their feet, horrified at his own weakness and nostalgia. Kent barely spares a glance for the cave, just attacks his mouth again, and as if some hidden permission has been given, starts tearing at the suit. His fingers slide uselessly over the Kevlar and he groans in frustration.

“I’ll get it,” Batman grunts, hands already moving to deactivate the security alarm and pop the hidden catches on the bottom half of the suit. “Get your own off.”

Kent strips quickly, without shyness or artifice. He stands there naked as Batman shucks the boots and the gauntlets and detaches the cape, proud and erect, precome already welling at the tip of his cock. Batman shoves him backwards into the medical bay. They fetch up hard against one of the examination tables, and Batman grips his waist, hauling him up onto it. Kent goes willingly, springing up with an agility that belies his size, and hauling Batman in between his wide spread knees. His hand between them takes Batman’s cock in a firm grip, pumping him hard, and he bites at the juncture of his neck and shoulder, almost hard enough to break the skin.

“Come on, come on,” he moans, and Batman slams him down flat on the table with a palm to the chest, holds him there when he tries to wriggle free. He yanks open a drawer in the medicine cabinet with the other hand, rummages without looking, seizing on a tube by feel alone. He flips the cap one handed, slicks his fingers, and shoves two into Kent without pause. Kent moans and jerks, but his face registers shocked wonder, not pain. It crosses Batman’s mind for a fleeting instant that this can’t possibly be his first time, surely, but then he’s arching his back and moving to meet the thrusts of Batman’s fingers.

He clambers up onto the bed, causing it to screech and slide for a second till the wheels lock, and moves into position between Kent’s raised knees. Kent looks happy and aroused and a little sad all at once, and it’s too much to process so he doesn’t, forcing his knees further apart with one of his own and moving into position. Kent’s tighter as he finds his way in than anyone else he’s ever known, and his thighs are like a vise around Batman’s waist, clenching with every thrust. He shoves back, hard, into every one, and his litany of grunts and moans is like filthy music, his breath coming in hot wet gusts against the skin of Batman’s face, exposed at the edge of the cowl. There’s an odd half-smile on his face, almost like he knows a secret, but he’s not the only one, and everyone’s entitled, so Batman says nothing.

It lasts forever and no time at all, and with a thrill of shocked recognition Batman catches himself drifting off into sleep. He shakes himself angrily, and pulls roughly free from the clinging embrace of Kent’s body, prompting a pained moan, and starts putting his suit to rights with sharp, angry movements. Kent tries to catch his eye, but he’ll have none of it, and the fact that he’s unable to look a simple reporter in the eye when he’s on his own home ground and fully dressed in comparison to his opponent’s nakedness just makes him more furious, with himself, with Kent, with the world. He throws the man’s clothes at him, barking for him to get dressed, and bundles him back into the car almost before he’s finished pulling them on. Kent’s flushed red from his face to his chest, and looks embarrassed and ashamed, in a way he hadn’t at all until now.

Batman sees him safely back to his hotel, and there’s something so ridiculously mundane about skulking in the shadows and dropping a lover a discreet distance from the door that he burns with humiliation, his own face flushing scarlet with the tawdriness of it all. It’s an unfortunate criminal who crosses his path the rest of the night, as he communicates with his fists and feet the terrible truth he’s too broken to say with his lips, but fears Kent read in every line of his body anyway: that Batman is a cipher, a mere bundle of memories and regrets; that he’s so lonely sometimes he could die; and that this simple anonymous assignation with a stranger is the most alive, and the most connected, that he’s felt in years.


	5. Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne, Gotham City, 2010

Bruce Wayne wakes slowly, and with a sense of unhurried contentment. The bed is warm and comfortable, and the arms around him strong and infinitely dependable. It’s as much a pleasure to wake up in his own bed for once as it is to be sharing it with someone who actually means something to him. He smiles and burrows under the covers, pressing back against a broad, well-muscled chest. Clark Kent smiles quietly and wraps his arms tighter against him, throws one leg over his lower body, and holds him close, lips moving against the back of his neck.

It should feel cloying, over-hot, suffocating, but it’s none of those things, the length of his body matched perfectly by Clark’s, the strength in those arms at once present, comforting and nurturing, and held perfectly at bay.

“Mmmm, good morning,” he murmurs.

“It _is_ a good morning,” Clark mutters back, leaning into him harder and rolling him half onto his front. “Any morning we’re both here, and not dealing with a robot invasion, or an alien death ray, or...”

“God,” Bruce moans as he feels Clark’s cock, hot and hard and heavy against the back of his thigh, “Again?”

“Again,” Clark answers, rutting against him gently. “Again and again and again. I can’t ever get enough of you. It took so incredibly long to get here, we have a lot of ground to make up.” 

Bruce moans again, and surrenders to the inevitable. Clark’s knee comes up between his, forcing his own up and wide apart. It feels delightfully wanton, sprawling on his stomach like this, Clark a hot, heavy weight on top of him, dick smearing a wet trail of precome against his lower back, a cooling mess of sweat and lube and their own combined fluids still seeping out of him and trailing down his inner thighs, his asshole open and swollen, puffy and hot and oh so sensitive to the gentle exploratory brush of Clark’s fingertips. He shudders and bites down hard on his own lip to keep from crying out.

“Uh-uh,” Clark admonishes, “No holding back. You promised no more hiding.”

“Clark...”

“You promised.”

It should be impossible for Clark to sound like a boy scout when he’s ravaging Bruce so ruthlessly, but he manages it, fingers slipping in and out of him with a wet, filthy slide, and no resistance whatsoever. It’s a metaphor for his own life, Bruce thinks, without rancour, and how effortlessly and completely Clark has forced his way past every barrier and into every corner of Bruce’s life. He pulls out his fingers with an obscene pop and moves into position.

He buries himself to the hilt with one long glide and Bruce’s over-used flesh protests at the burn.

“God, Clark,” he cries out. “I need to be able to _walk_ , much less patrol tonight.”

“I’m sure Dick or Tim can handle it,” Clark demurs, teeth grazing at the back of Bruce’s neck, biting at his jaw and ear and the curve of his shoulder.

“Nngh,” Bruce groans. “Don’t mention the boys while you’re doing that.”

“What, _this_?” Clark asks, moving his hips in a semi-circle and scraping the head of his dick across Bruce’s over-stimulated prostate.

“Unh, god, Clark, _god_.”

Clark laughs. “Bruce Wayne, lost for words? I guess I’m doing something right after all.”

“I created a _monster_ when I agreed to keep seeing you,” Bruce complains weakly.

“Hey!” Clark protests, stilling his movements maddeningly. “I was a _virgin_ when you ruthlessly seduced me.”

“Ha!” Bruce snorts. “Lana Lang would beg to differ.”

“Nothing as humiliating as what happened with Lana counts,” Clark insists crossly.

Bruce chuckles breathlessly, pinned as he is beneath two hundred pounds of Kryptonian muscle. “Sadly for literally _millions_ of humiliated people around the globe, Clark,” he gasps out, “I don’t think that’s the threshold test.”

“Nothing happened!” Clark repeats. “Not according to the Clinton test, which I believe was in force at the time, and not by any other test you care to apply. Except maybe the broadest possible ‘Bruce Wayne will debauch anything that moves’ test.”

“Hey!” Bruce tries to elbow him in the gut, but succeeds only in getting his arms dragged up above his head and both hands secured in one of Clark’s massive paws. There are some serious downsides to sleeping with a super-powered alien.

“If the cowl fits,” Clark snipes. “You slept with Superman and never called him.”

“Oh, don’t try to tell me Lois Lane hadn’t got her hooks into _Superman_.”

Clark laughs out loud, the jackass, and Bruce just knows he’s smirking behind his back. “Yeah, she did. But _after_ you.”

“Seriously?” Clark never ceases to amaze. “You are a sadder man than I thought. I met you just in time.”

“I’m surprised you had _room_ for me in your long list of conquests. Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, Silver St Cloud-”

Two can play at that game. “Harvey Dent, Lex Luthor-”

“Lex Luthor! _Lex Luthor?_ ” Advantage, Wayne.

“You didn’t seriously think that gag gift on my birthday was about _business_ did you?”

“I can’t _believe_ you! How many more of my super villains have you slept with?”

“None.” This may have been a strategic mistake after all. “And he wasn’t a super villain at the time! We were sixteen years old for God’s sake! We were school boys!”

“Oh, my _God_. You lost your virginity to _Lex Luthor_?”

Definite blunder. Clark’s brute force style of attack is evidently rubbing off. Or maybe it’s the head injuries. He never used to admit to anything so potentially compromising.

“My humiliation is complete.” 

“It has nothing to do with you. I’m sorry I mentioned it, now can you-”

“It has everything to do with me. My worst enemy and my best-”

“ _Best_ -?”

“Never mind.”

“Hey, in another universe, _you_ could have lost your virginity to Lex Luthor. He was living in Smallville that summer you came to Gotham, he emailed me to say how excruciatingly boring it all was.”

“Oh, my god. Stop talking!” 

“ _Make me!_ ”

Clark does, but not in the way Bruce was hoping. He presses hard on Bruce’s shoulder blades with his free hand, and when the need to breathe becomes compelling, demands, “Is there anyone else I should be concerned about?”

Curse that god damned honesty policy. “I don’t know,” Bruce sighs into the pillow, “Does Catwoman count? Talia al-Ghul? They’ve both slept with Batman. Though technically I was drugged one of those times. And maybe mind controlled the other.”

“I’ll let it pass,” Clark says grudgingly, shifting his weight just enough. “At least I’m the only one who’s slept with Bruce Wayne _and_ Batman.”

Bruce bites his tongue and tries very, very hard not to even breathe funny. He has a sudden sympathy for all the criminals he’s terrorised on rooftops over the years.

“Oh, my _god_ ,” Clark echoes. “Seriously? Who?”

“No one.”

“You’re lying.”

“I’m not. You are the only person on earth who has slept with both Bruce Wayne and Batman.”

“On earth? There’s someone not from earth? It’s not someone from the _League_ is it?”

“No!” God, how did a blissful Sunday morning turn into _this_? “You are the only League member, and the only alien, I have slept with. Okay?” 

“It’s not... Oh, my god, it _is_. Son of a bitch.”

“Clark.”

“Son of a _bitch_. ‘Super hero teams should _co-operate_.’ ‘Starktech will _revolutionise_ -’”

“ _Clark!_ ”

“I _knew_ he was checking you out when you were showing him around the Watchtower.”

“He was not. And even if he was it wouldn’t have gone anywhere, I was already with you by then.”

“Huhn,” Clark huffs, only slightly mollified. 

“And as I _said_ , you’re the only person or alien who has the distinction of sleeping with both Batman and Bruce Wayne, on earth or elsewhere. Technically you have it twice over. Tony Stark slept with Bruce Wayne. Years ago. Batman slept with _Iron Man_.”

“ _Tony Stark is Iron Man?_ How do you know?”

“I have _eyes_. And a brain. And I’m getting out the kryptonite, Clark.”

That gets him moving again, _at last_. A couple of shifts of his hips, and he’s fully hard again, never having left Bruce’s body. There are some major _up_ sides to sleeping with a super-powered alien too.

“It’s not even in here!” Clark exclaims suddenly, outraged, grinding to a halt again. Bruce bites his lip in frustration. “I told you to keep it up here, just in case-”

“Clark,” Bruce grits through clenched teeth. “What do I have to threaten you with to get you to finish?”

“You could try asking nicely!” Clark sulks.

Bruce sighs. “ _Please_ , light of my life, finish me off, or get off me and let me call someone who will.”

Game, set and match, Wayne. It’s a dangerous sport, but the toughest competitions have the greatest rewards. Clark growls wordlessly, then thrusts in a few times, hard, teeth clamping on the back of Bruce’s neck. It’ll bruise for sure. He kisses the bite mark, then shifts his hands to Bruce’s hips, pulling him bodily up onto his hands and knees. Bruce moans and goes with the movement, secretly loving the fact that Clark can man-handle him so effortlessly. He’ll never admit it, but then, he doesn’t have to. Clark already knows, and Bruce...? Bruce is beginning to be okay with that. 

His aching muscles can’t hold the position though, and he’s trying to shape the words to say so, when Clark pulls him hard up against his own chest, plastering them together the full length of their bodies, pulling him up and back into Clark’s lap, his own thighs opening to spread helplessly over Clark’s, his head lolling back onto Clark’s shoulder. The penetration deepens impossibly, excruciatingly, exhilaratingly more, and he collapses, going limp, letting gravity and his own weight and Clark’s impossibly large, impossibly strong hands on his aching hips pull him down even harder onto the burning brand of Clark’s cock.

He feels like he’s breaking open; the pulsing throb of Clark’s flesh inside him, the slap of his balls against him, the wet squelch of their fluids, inseparably mixed, the sharp bite of Clark’s teeth at his neck, marking him again and again, as though it wasn’t already there like a permanent brand for all the world to see, the moist gust of Clark’s breath in his ear; all that as nothing to the great, gulping crater inside his soul that’s cracking open, deep and bottomless and so, so empty, and the terrifying thought that this man in his bed and his body and his heart just might be able to fill it.

He comes suddenly, without ever having been touched, his cock spitting out a climax almost dry, and Clark keeps on riding him through it, thrusting again and again until it’s just this side of too much, just a hair’s breadth away from unpleasantly painful, and just as Bruce is about to cry out, beg him to stop, Clark goes rigid against his back, his cock growing and swelling impossibly more inside him, and then he’s coming, hot and wet, branding Bruce with his seed, adding to the mess already inside him. He collapses like his strings have been cut, dropping Bruce back to the bed and sprawling out on top of him, half hard cock still twitching valiantly inside him. Bruce moans and tries to shove him off.

Clark comes back to himself at last, wincing apologetically and bracing himself against Bruce’s hip, pulling out as gently as he can. Bruce grits his teeth and still cries out at the drag of Clark’s finally, mercifully, softening dick, and Clark kisses apologies across his shoulders and back.

“I love you,” Clark whispers.

“Mmm...”

“I said, I love you,” he repeats. 

“I heard you,” Bruce grits out, his abused throat producing something uncomfortably close to Batman’s growl.

“And?” Clark prompts. 

“And I was thinking about the first time we met.”

“Oh,” Clark says, momentarily distracted from his quest. “Which time?”

“Every time,” Bruce admits. “No matter where we were, no matter _who_ we were, however screwed up I was, it always felt like this.”

“Yeah,” Clark agrees. “It’s the only reason I was able to keep doing it.”

“Yeah. I do, you know.”

“Do what?”

“ _Claaark_...”

“Say it, Bruce. Please.” 

Clark sounds oddly desperate, and Bruce doesn’t ever want to hear him like that, not when something he can do, something so simple, even if it is something terrifying, can fix it.

“I love you, Clark,” he says, “I’ve always loved you. From the moment you stood up for a spoiled, selfish brat to a total stranger, and then forgave that stranger for treating you abominably. Through all the years, and all the games... I do love you, Clark. And I always will.”

“It was never a game, Bruce,” Clark whispers. “But thank you. And I knew too, from that first moment. It’s what I was always looking to get back. Thank you for giving it to me.”

“Mmm...” Bruce mutters again. “Sleep now.”

“Sure thing, B,” Clark whispers, leaning round to kiss him once more. “Sleep well.”

“Mmm, you too.”

Alfred finds them there, still wrapped around each other, hours later when he comes in with a late brunch tray. He draws the heavy curtains tightly, blocking out the brightening sun, and picks up the scattered pieces of two battered suits, one blue and red lycra, the other black and grey Kevlar. He tuts quietly to himself as he hauls both to the laundry, and closes the bedroom door firmly behind him. He takes the liberty of contacting Nightwing and Robin, and asking them to patrol Gotham City for tonight. It’s good to see his wayward ward coming to his senses at last; that nice Mr Kent has always been a good influence on him, from the very beginning.


End file.
